Horror as mother, 20, is beheaded in front of her young son after getting trapped in doors of elevator as it shot to the next floor

- Olga Tilinina got wedged in doors when they suddenly slammed shut
- Managed to push two-year-old son Maxim away as the lift travelled up
- She was decapitated as her body became squeezed between the floors
- Emergency worker said: 'Her poor son witnessed this scene from hell'

A young mother was beheaded in front of her two-and-a-half year old son in an horrific elevator accident in her block of flats near Moscow.

Olga Tilinina, 20, was with her eldest child Maxim after taking him for a walk.

She entered the lift on the ground floor with her son behind her when the elevator doors suddenly slammed shut.

Her legs were trapped between the doors, say neighbours.

'Scene from hell': 20-year-old Olga Tilinina was decapitated in front of her toddler son Maxim when she became trapped in the doors of an out-of-control elevator at her block of flats near Moscow

The Russian mother pushed her son to safety but the lift then went up with her jammed half in-half out of the rising elevator.

Her head cracked against the ceiling of the lift doorway.

Olga was literally torn to pieces and 'her head was found on the ground floor, while the rest of her body was squeezed between the floors' before the elevator finally came to a halt on the second floor, said a report by television channel NTV.

A family friend named Mikhail said: 'She had come back home, and was about to enter the lift with her child, but the door closed.

'I have lost my most beloved and darling person': Mrs Tilinina with her husband Dmitry who plans to sue the company managing the apartment block for alleged negligence

'She managed to push away her child, then her legs were caught, and the upper part of her body was crushed on the concrete.

'She was terribly badly damaged. A mess in her stomach, all mangled and smashed, her face mashed.'

An emergency services worker said: 'Her poor son witnessed this scene from hell.'

Minutes earlier Olga's husband Dmitry, 24, had used the same lift to take the couple's other child Egor, one, in from their family walk.

When a traumatised Maxim was reunited with his shell-shocked father, all he could say was 'Mama, leg.'

In a tribute to his dead wife, who in 2012 had been a contestant in a beauty contest in their home town of Dmitrov, he wrote on her social site: 'I have lost my most beloved and darling person.

'I love you and remember you, you will remain in my heart. Our children love you.'

The grief-stricken husband said: 'I just can't understand how this could happen.

'Normally you push the doors and they open but instead it snapped shut, trapping her legs, and kept moving, dragging her up.

'And our elder son saw all this. He is just two and a half. He came into our apartment and said: 'Mama, leg.'

He said: 'Olga was the love of my life, she gave me two children. She was just 20, and now we have buried her.'

He insisted he would now devote his life to raising their sons.

'I have two little children to look after. I will take care of them myself, I won't give them to anyone, I will raise them for Olga's memory,' he said.

The widower stressed: 'Olga and I had such great plans for our life. Now I will do all this myself, for her sake.'

He plans to sue the company managing the apartment block for negligence.

Experts are examining the damaged Soviet-era elevator. Mechanics had attended the elevator hours before the tragedy, it has been disclosed.

'We are waiting for the results of the experts' opinion now,' he said.

'Nobody will give me back my wife, but the moral damages will let me look after our children for the future.'

A probe led by the local branch of Russia's Investigative Committee - equivalent of the FBI - is underway.

'Policemen found remains of the 20-year-old young woman squeezed between the ceiling and the doors of the lift,' said a statement.

'Investigators have questioned the residents of this block, relatives of the victim, and removed all technical documents on the condition of this lift.

'Technical experts will check its functioning. When all the results are gathered, a decision on how to proceed will be made.'

One neighbour said: 'There have been complaints about this lift for years.'